Elevation: Raise Yer Game, Internets, for I Am Giving Away Hooks

June 23, 2009

Dear Intertubes:

I was scrolling through yer bountiful pleasures the other day and came across things that made me want to write a blog post, because I’m totally reactive that way.

First off, ———-, stop posting this on twitter over and over again because it’s f-cking with my ability to find real information about myself, and we all know how important that is: “My books have been blurbed by writers such as Piers Anthony, Jack Ketchum, Jeff Strand, Jeff VanderMeer, John Skipp, Gary Braunbeck.” Stop it! Or mix it up: “My books have not been blurbed by Junot Diaz, Stephen King, Fatty Warbucks, and Irmalinda Pitkaginkel.” (Besides, you are beginning to sound like you have some kind of disease. I am worried about you. Love, Flaming Disaster.)

So I will begin with the give-aways here, since I’m not doing my fair share. Still, it’s going to be a little different than on other blogs.

Let me explain. I do features, interviews, and book reviews across a spectrum of different publications. Do I love everything I profile? No, I do not, but there are plenty of books that deserve coverage that will never fall into my personal love-it category–books and authors I still respect, and that readers want to hear about. (Mind you, book reviews fall into another category entirely–that of complete disclosure of the reviewer’s opinion.)

All by way of saying I like to be both more relaxed and less relaxed here on my blog. I don’t do book give-aways on my blog except rarely, and I’ll only give away a book I truly deeply love. Otherwise, there’s a kind of contamination going on–something junking up my relationship with my blog readers. And I don’t want book publishers leveraging up on me in my personal space.

So, all that out of the way, here’s my give-away contest: Write me a 10,000-word essay on why you think give-aways helped create or destroy the fantasy genre as we know it (deadline: Jan. 1, 2010) and you will receive one of the following prizes:

This here boot I can’t find the mate for:

This here hook in our ceiling that I can’t find any use for and that makes me think Captain Hook is embedded in our attic:

For the hook and the boot and the pink thing I am willing to offer a 10,000 word palindrome that is also an anagram for the first 10,000 words of the KJV Old Testament and also encodes a non-trivial portion of the genome of a healthy member of the mammal or fish species of your choice while still making at least three (3) pithy and trenchant observations about whatever it was

But Felix, can you write a 10,000 paean to the sex god that is Rush Limbaugh and be totally true in your lust to him, while still answering the questions Jeff has posed above? That’s a tougher challenge, I’d think.

ah look i’ll swap you a cat-humped pillow for a dog-slobbered piece of rope…….
can i make the writing task something i can give my kids at school (6 and 7 year-olds) and then submit the best pieces? some of them might begin with “On the weekend I….” or “I lost my wobbly tooth and the tooth fairy gave me….”

What is it with hooks in ceilings? When we moved into our house, there was a hook in the ceiling of every room, including the bathroom; there was even a hook embedded in a tree branch in the yard. I mean, who doesn’t like a nice hanging plant, but every room? What was going on in there?

Why is it that some blogs just seem to obtain it proper, many thanks for currently being so useful.

About Jeff VanderMeer

Author photo by Kyle Cassidy.

Jeff VanderMeer recently served as the 2016-2017 Trias Writer-in-Residence for Hobart-William Smith College. His latest novel is Borne, out from MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, which Colson Whitehead called “a thorough marvel.” He is also known for his critically acclaimed NYT-bestselling Southern Reach trilogy from FSG,which won the Shirley Jackson Award and Nebula Award. The trilogy also prompted theNew Yorkerto call the author “the weird Thoreau” and has been acquired by publishers in 35 other countries, with Paramount Pictures releasing a movie in 2018. VanderMeer’s nonfiction has appeared in theNew York Times, theGuardian, the Atlantic.com, Vulture, Esquire.com, and theLos Angeles Times. He has taught at the Yale Writers’ Conference, lectured at MIT, Brown, and the Library of Congress, and serves as the co-director of Shared Worlds, a unique teen writing camp. You can contact him at press info at vandermeercreative.com. More...